Essaying memory through rubble compositions: the La Moneda Heritage Palace in ¿Cómo recordar la sed? by Nona Fernández

Abstract

This work explores the link between rubble and memory surrounding the heritage building Palacio de la Moneda, as proposed in the book ¿Cómo recordar la sed? (Fernández, 2023), focusing on the forms of associativity and the semiotic-material interconnections between different components that embody the text. In this regard, we propose that the author's exercise constitutes a practice of ‘rehearsing memory’, in reference to the production of a mode of storytelling that deploys forces linked to the events that have marked the history of the building. To this extent, we explore the affective and inventive powers of the book, approaching it as a textual composition that is woven together through dislocations, surfaces, and blank spaces, all of which participate as operators of memory activation. The irresolute and fragmentary nature of these operators acts as a means by which the debris intrudes and infiltrates the narrative, becoming actants with the capacity to actualize the memory of the past in the present. This reflects a speculative exercise that detaches memory from its funereal reference opening it to the generation of other possible narratives, attending to its vital, processual, and generative condition.